Seeing well enough to play croquet at dusk is no problem with these
homemade wickets. Their white PVC pipe legs stand out much more clearly
than their thin wire counterparts.

Designed by William Stanley of Buellton, California, the simple,
lightweight wickets and end posts can be built in just a few hours. To
make complete set of nine wickets and two posts, you'll need two
10-foot lengths of 3/4-inch schedule 125 PVC pipe, 8 feet of 2-by2
redwood or fir, 20 galvanized gutter spikes 7 inches long, 6 feet of
3/4-inch hardwood dowel, a box of brads, and epoxy glue. Materials will
run about $15 to $20.

Make the tops by sawing the 2 by 2's into nine 9-inch pieces;
angle the ends 15[deg.]. Mark and drill two 1-inch-deep, 3/4-inch-wide
holes in the underside of each top.

Using a hacksaw, cut the PVC pipe into 18 pieces 11 inches long and
two pieces 18 inches long. (You can remove any lettering on outside
with acetone or by lightly sanding.) Check that the dowel fits into the
pipe; sand the wood down if necessary, then cut the dowel into 20 pieces
2 inches long and 20 pieces 1 inch long. Hold the 1-inch pieces with
pliers and drill holes through their centers so that gutter spikes will
pass through snugly. Glue the spikes in position, with heads flush.

Glue the longer dowel pieces into the 2-by-2 tops, then glue on the
piping. Add the short dowels with gutter spikes to the bottom of each
pipe. To further lock the pipe and dowels in position, add the brads
where indicated (predrill small holes to prevent cracking).

Just for the fun of it, Mr. STanley added decorative tops to the
18-inch-high end posts. The rooster shown above was cut from 3/4-inch
pine. Its comb, wattles, and tail were cut from 1/4-inch plywood, the
feet carved from scrap wood. The legs are short pieces of 1/4-inch
dowel covered with a plastic drinking straw. One leg dowel extends down
from the body into a 3/4-inch dowel in the end post.

COPYRIGHT 1984 Sunset Publishing Corp.
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.